Dark Frontier :: View topic - Offical Review Thread

Posted: Sun Jul 05, 2009 11:55 pm

Please post your comments about Episode 2 here. Very Happy

Posted: Mon Jul 06, 2009 12:30 pm

it was haw-some.

Posted: Mon Jul 06, 2009 1:42 pm

It rocked and 3 will be even better

Posted: Mon Jul 06, 2009 5:20 pm

I was very impressed with this episode. I enjoyed the opening cgi sequences with the battle. The commander who got shook up when the ship was hit did an awesome job of making that look real and of course the editor who timed it up did an awesome job fitting the shaking of the ship and the commander's movements together.

Matching up the cast so that their eyes met when talking was almost perfect in this episode. It looked much better. I think my favorite character this episode was Art Wallace's - Lt. Xavier. I loved his personality.

I think the next thing to work on is speech audibility. Not necessarily "loudness" but more enunciation on the actor's part. I had this problem too - words seemed to slur together. It would also be cool to have subtitles as an option.

Posted: Mon Jul 06, 2009 5:59 pm

great we have big plans for the cast

Posted: Mon Jul 06, 2009 6:09 pm

dr davidious wrote:

great we have big plans for the cast

Yes... Plans... Twisted Evil

LOL Just kidding.

I was very impressed with several scenes personally. I think my favorite was the Conference Room scene. Still trying to figure out what Cmdr. Daudo is trying to whisper to Dr. Davidious. An I love the expression on Serena's face when Cmdr. Connor starts making weird faces at her. LOL
I think the most amazing part about that whole thing. Is that they were each filmed 1 on 1. It turned out really really well.

I also totally enjoyed the music in this one. The Bar music always had my head bobbing. LOL

And the romantic themes really sounded fantastic. It's also nice to see we have a str8 couple with a wedding in the future. Very Happy

Afterall, it's not a gay universe.

Posted: Mon Jul 06, 2009 6:19 pm

yes the music is amazing as always,mt favorite scene well 2 scenes really is lynx sitting in the chair falling asleep,and xavier taking energy from the console but over all,it was great i cant wait to start on ep 3

Posted: Mon Jul 06, 2009 10:01 pm

Looked pretty good! Definitely kept my attention..

On a side note, Casey, was glad you were able to use the warp jump sound effect Wink

Was actually hoping I'd hear it at the end of the episode!

I do have one small crit, and that's just a timing issue. There were occasions where the pauses between different characters talking seemed a bit longer than they should be.. However, only on a couple occasions was it distracting.

Overall though, great work to all involved!

Posted: Tue Jul 07, 2009 2:05 pm

THANK YOU !!!

Posted: Tue Jul 07, 2009 5:30 pm

CaptKBale wrote:

On a side note, Casey, was glad you were able to use the warp jump sound effect Wink

Was actually hoping I'd hear it at the end of the episode!

Thank you so much for the sound effect! It did come in really handy. hehe Was a perfect fit for the last scene of the Arkangel.

Crewman Joined: 09 Aug 2009 Posts: 2

I've watched both episodes in the last day and they're quite good! They're light years beyond the first episodes of other green-screen based fan-fic shows we've all seen.

There's so much that's really good here. First off, the CGI is top-notch. The models, animation, and rendering comes together extremely well. The CGI backgrounds for the interiors are also excellent. I'm particularly impressed with the depth you create in your green-screen worlds -- using foreground and background elements like consoles and other actors -- and having actors actually walk through doors! This adds a lot to the realism of your production.

There are some absolute stand-out performances in this show, as well. I'm particularly impressed with James Lamp who exudes sexy masculine adventurer in his bar scenes (and has quite a nice singing voice). The one who steals the show for me, though, is Ben Bassett. I honestly wasn't 100% sure that Max and Ian were being played by the same person until I saw the credits -- he plays both so differently. I haven't caught the names of the other folks, yet, but the gentleman who is struggling to re-program the "Captain's Woman" is also quite good. Everyone else also does a great job, but I wanted to point out a few stand-outs from my perspective.

The score is outstanding. The theme is regal and Wendell manages to find great moments in the show to build upon musically. I really love the exciting triplet-based theme I heard a couple times, one example at 1:00:00 in episode 2. The orchestration is often very rich and well realized, and Wendell seems to have a great instinct for when to pull back and let the drama unfold without score.

There are a couple constructive critiques I'd like to offer. One has been touched on earlier in this thread -- the pacing is off. A line is delivered, pause, the response is delivered, pause, the next line is delivered, pause, etc. The episodes would feel much more professional if these pauses were cut out in the editing process. I read somewhere here that you're using Sony Vegas; while I don't know Vegas well (I'm a Premiere Pro guy, myself), I do know it allows for split editing -- taking sound from one shot over another. Using split edits can help draw action and pacing forward.

The other critique is about the quality of the audio recordings of the performers. I know it can be tough to get a good recording, but it's so important. I lost a fair amount of the dialogue because the microphone wasn't anywhere near the actors. It's really important to get an external microphone and get it close to your actors. If you have a good shotgun microphone, you can be a few feet away and still get good audio, but if all you have is an inexpensive microphone, you can still get great sound by getting the mic in really close. You're shooting mostly on green-screen, so it's easy to hide your microphone behind some green card, and then it'll disappear in the keying process. You also use Adobe Audition in your software stack, I seem to remember; you can use Audition to bring up the level of the audio recordings with the various dynamics filters. I'd suggest applying the "compander" filter to your audio (and fiddle around with the various settings) and I think you'll be surprised how much clearer the audio becomes.

Please don't let these critiques discourage you. I think the story is great, the acting is great, the score is fantastic, and the potential is extremely high for this show. Make changes to your production flow -- the makeup changes between episode 1 and 2 are an example of how you can change things behind the scenes and make the show better!

I'm really impressed with what you've done here. I look forward to more!

Best regards,
Dex Craig

Posted: Mon Aug 10, 2009 3:27 pm

thank you for the kind words we love to get feedback it helps us make a better production

Posted: Sun Dec 13, 2009 10:42 pm

I like the twist of having a clothed female bar owner. Nog would be pleased. I agree that the voices are a little hard to follow at times. Since I like the more balanced design of the Star Gazer, I am disappointed not seeing such a I.S.S. vessel flying around some where. Still I have added this Dark Frontier to my Favorites. This time next year I hope to drop by and see some more episodes that leave me with more questions than answers.